Vailima Letters, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Chapter XIX

Sunday, 29th May.

how am I to overtake events? On Wednesday, as soon as my mail was finished, I had a wild whirl to look
forward to. Immediately after dinner, Belle, Lloyd and I, set out on horseback, they to the club, I to Haggard’s,
thence to the hotel where I had supper ready for them. All next day we hung round Apia with our whole house-crowd in
Sunday array, hoping for the mail steamer with a menagerie on board. No such luck; the ship delayed; and at last, about
three, I had to send them home again, a failure of a day’s pleasuring that does not bear to be discussed. Lloyd was so
sickened that he returned the same night to Vailima, Belle and I held on, sat most of the evening on the hotel verandah
stricken silly with fatigue and disappointment, and genuine sorrow for our poor boys and girls, and got to bed with
rather dismal appreciations of the morrow.

These were more than justified, and yet I never had a jollier day than Friday 27th. By 7.30 Belle and I had
breakfast; we had scarce done before my mother was at the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to take her not
very dashing charger home again. By 8.10 we were all on the landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we had got away in a
boat with two inches of green wood on the keel of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no boat flag, two defective
rowlocks, two wretched apologies for oars, and two boys — one a Tongan half-caste, one a white lad, son of the Tonga
schoolmaster, and a sailor lad — to pull us. All this was our first taste of the tender mercies of Taylor (the
sesquipidalian half-caste introduced two letters back, I believe). We had scarce got round Mulinuu when Sale Taylor’s
heart misgave him; he thought we had missed the tide; called a halt, and set off ashore to find canoes. Two were found;
in one my mother and I were embarked with the two biscuit tins (my present to the feast), and the bag with our dry
clothes, on which my mother was perched — and her cap was on the top of it — feminine hearts please sympathise; all
under the guidance of Sale. In the other Belle and our guest; Tauilo, a chief-woman, the mother of my cook, were to
have followed. And the boys were to have been left with the boat. But Tauilo refused. And the four, Belle, Tauilo,
Frank the sailor-boy, and Jimmie the Tongan half-caste, set off in the boat across that rapidly shoaling bay of the
lagoon.

How long the next scene lasted, I could never tell. Sale was always trying to steal away with our canoe and leave
the other four, probably for six hours, in an empty, leaky boat, without so much as an orange or a cocoanut on board,
and under the direct rays of the sun. I had at last to stop him by taking the spare paddle off the out-rigger and
sticking it in the ground — depth, perhaps two feet — width of the bay, say three miles. At last I bid him land me and
my mother and go back for the other ladies. ‘The coast is so rugged,’ said Sale. — ‘What?’ I said, ‘all these villages
and no landing place?’ — ‘Such is the nature of Samoans,’ said he. Well, I’ll find a landing-place, I thought; and
presently I said, ‘Now we are going to land there.’ — ‘We can but try,’ said the bland Sale, with resignation. Never
saw a better landing-place in my life. Here the boat joined us. My mother and Sale continued in the canoe alone, and
Belle and I and Tauilo set off on foot for Malie. Tauilo was about the size of both of us put together and a piece
over; she used us like a mouse with children. I had started barefoot; Belle had soon to pull off her gala shoes and
stockings; the mud was as deep as to our knees, and so slippery that (moving, as we did, in Indian file, between dense
scratching tufts of sensitive) Belle and I had to take hands to support each other, and Tauilo was steadying Belle from
the rear. You can conceive we were got up to kill, Belle in an embroidered white dress and white hat, I in a suit of
Bedford cords hot from the Sydney tailors; and conceive us, below, ink-black to the knees with adhesive clay, and
above, streaming with heat. I suppose it was better than three miles, but at last we made the end of Malie. I asked if
we could find no water to wash our feet; and our nursemaid guided us to a pool. We sat down on the pool side, and our
nursemaid washed our feet and legs for us — ladies first, I suppose out of a sudden respect to the insane European
fancies: such a luxury as you can scarce imagine. I felt a new man after it. But before we got to the King’s house we
were sadly muddied once more. It was 1 P.M. when we arrived, the canoe having beaten us by about five minutes, so we
made fair time over our bog-holes.

But the war dances were over, and we came in time to see only the tail end (some two hours) of the food
presentation. In Mataafa’s house three chairs were set for us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native house without
the blinds down is like a verandah. All the green in front was surrounded with sheds, some of flapping canvas, some of
green palm boughs, where (in three sides of a huge oblong) the natives sat by villages in a fine glow of many-hued
array. There were folks in tapa, and folks in patchwork; there was every colour of the rainbow in a spot or a cluster;
there were men with their heads gilded with powdered sandal-wood, others with heads all purple, stuck full of the
petals of a flower. In the midst there was a growing field of outspread food, gradually covering acres; the gifts were
brought in, now by chanting deputations, now by carriers in a file; they were brandished aloft and declaimed over, with
polite sacramental exaggerations, by the official receiver. He, a stalwart, well-oiled quadragenarian, shone with sweat
from his exertions, brandishing cooked pigs. At intervals, from one of the squatted villages, an orator would arise.
The field was almost beyond the reach of any human speaking voice; the proceedings besides continued in the midst; yet
it was possible to catch snatches of this elaborate and cut-and-dry oratory — it was possible for me, for instance, to
catch the description of my gift and myself as the AliiTusitala, O le alii O malo tetele —
the chief White Information, the chief of the great Governments. Gay designation? In the house, in our three curule
chairs, we sat and looked on. On our left a little group of the family. In front of us, at our feet, an ancient
Talking-man, crowned with green leaves, his profile almost exactly Dante’s; Popo his name. He had worshipped idols in
his youth; he had been full grown before the first missionary came hither from Tahiti; this makes him over eighty. Near
by him sat his son and colleague. In the group on our left, his little grandchild sat with her legs crossed and her
hands turned, the model already (at some three years old) of Samoan etiquette. Still further off to our right, Mataafa
sat on the ground through all the business; and still I saw his lips moving, and the beads of his rosary slip
stealthily through his hand. We had kava, and the King’s drinking was hailed by the Popos (father and son) with a
singular ululation, perfectly new to my ears; it means, to the expert, ‘Long live Tuiatua’; to the inexpert, is a mere
voice of barbarous wolves. We had dinner, retired a bit behind the central pillar of the house; and, when the King was
done eating, the ululation was repeated. I had my eyes on Mataafa’s face, and I saw pride and gratified ambition spring
to life there and be instantly sucked in again. It was the first time, since the difference with Laupepa, that Popo and
his son had openly joined him, and given him the due cry as Tuiatua — one of the eight royal names of the islands, as I
hope you will know before this reaches you.

Not long after we had dined, the food-bringing was over. The gifts (carefully noted and tallied as they came in)
were now announced by a humorous orator, who convulsed the audience, introducing singing notes, now on the name of the
article, now on the number; six thousand odd heads of taro, three hundred and nineteen cooked pigs; and one thing that
particularly caught me (by good luck), a single turtle ‘for the King’ — leTasi Mo Le Tupu. Then came
one of the strangest sights I have yet witnessed. The two most important persons there (bar Mataafa) were Popo and his
son. They rose, holding their long shod rods of talking men, passed forth from the house, broke into a strange dance,
the father capering with outstretched arms and rod, the son crouching and gambolling beside him in a manner
indescribable, and presently began to extend the circle of this dance among the acres of cooked food. Whatever they
leaped over, Whatever they called for, became theirs. To see mediaeval Dante thus demean himself struck a kind of
a chill of incongruity into our Philistine souls; but even in a great part of the Samoan concourse, these antique and
(I understand) quite local manners awoke laughter. One of my biscuit tins and a live calf were among the spoils he
claimed, but the large majority of the cooked food (having once proved his dignity) he re-presented to the King.

Then came the turn of Le AliiTusitala. He would not dance, but he was given — five live hens,
four gourds of oil, four fine tapas, a hundred heads of taro, two cooked pigs, a cooked shark, two or three cocoanut
branches strung with kava, and the turtle, who soon after breathed his last, I believe, from sunstroke. It was a royal
present for ‘the chief of the great powers.’ I should say the gifts were, on the proper signal, dragged out of the
field of food by a troop of young men, all with their lava-lavas kilted almost into a loin-cloth. The art is to swoop
on the food-field, pick up with unerring swiftness the right things and quantities, swoop forth again on the open, and
separate, leaving the gifts in a new pile: so you may see a covey of birds in a corn-field. This reminds me of a very
inhumane but beautiful passage I had forgotten in its place. The gift-giving was still in full swing, when there came a
troop of some ninety men all in tafa lava-lavas of a purplish colour; they paused, and of a sudden there went up from
them high into the air a flight of live chickens, which, as they came down again, were sent again into the air, for
perhaps a minute, from the midst of a singular turmoil of flying arms and shouting voices; I assure you, it was very
beautiful to see, but how many chickens were killed?

No sooner was my food set out than I was to be going. I had a little serious talk with Mataafa on the floor, and we
went down to the boat, where we got our food aboard, such a cargo — like the Swiss Family Robinson, we said. However, a
squall began, Tauilo refused to let us go, and we came back to the house for half-an-hour or so, when my ladies
distinguished themselves by walking through a Fono (council), my mother actually taking up a position between Mataafa
and Popo! It was about five when we started — turtle, pigs, taro, etc., my mother, Belle, myself, Tauilo, a portly
friend of hers with the voice of an angel, and a pronunciation so delicate and true that you could follow Samoan as she
sang, and the two tired boys Frank and Jimmie, with the two bad oars and the two slippery rowlocks to impel the whole.
Sale Taylor took the canoe and a strong Samoan to paddle him. Presently after he went inshore, and passed us a little
after, with his arms folded, and two strong Samoans impelling him Apia-ward. This was too much for Belle, who
hailed, taunted him, and made him return to the boat with one of the Samoans, setting Jimmie instead in the canoe. Then
began our torment, Sale and the Samoan took the oars, sat on the same thwart (where they could get no swing on the boat
had they tried), and deliberately ladled at the lagoon. We lay enchanted. Night fell; there was a light visible on
shore; it did not move. The two women sang, Belle joining them in the hymns she has learned at family worship. Then a
squall came up; we sat a while in roaring midnight under rivers of rain, and, when it blew by, there was the light
again, immovable. A second squall followed, one of the worst I was ever out in; we could scarce catch our breath in the
cold, dashing deluge. When it went, we were so cold that the water in the bottom of the boat (which I was then baling)
seemed like a warm footbath in comparison, and Belle and I, who were still barefoot, were quite restored by laving in
it.

All this time I had kept my temper, and refrained as far as might be from any interference, for I saw (in our
friend’s mulish humour) he always contrived to twist it to our disadvantage. But now came the acute point. Young Frank
now took an oar. He was a little fellow, near as frail as myself, and very short; if he weighed nine stone, it was the
outside; but his blood was up. He took stroke, moved the big Samoan forward to bow, and set to work to pull him round
in fine style. Instantly a kind of race competition — almost race hatred — sprang up. We jeered the Samoan. Sale
declared it was the trim of the boat: ‘if this lady was aft’ (Tauilo’s portly friend) ‘he would row round Frank.’ We
insisted on her coming aft, and Frank still rowed round the Samoan. When the Samoan caught a crab (the thing was
continual with these wretched oars and rowlocks), we shouted and jeered; when Frank caught one, Sale and the Samoan
jeered and yelled. But anyway the boat moved, and presently we got up with Mulinuu, where I finally lost my temper,
when I found that Sale proposed to go ashore and make a visit — in fact, we all three did. It is not worth while going
into, but I must give you one snatch of the subsequent conversation as we pulled round Apia bay. ‘This Samoan,’ said
Sale, ‘received seven German bullets in the field of Fangalii.’ ‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said Belle. ‘His brother
was killed there,’ pursued Sale; and Belle, prompt as an echo, ‘Then there are no more of the family? how delightful!’
Sale was sufficiently surprised to change the subject; he began to praise Frank’s rowing with insufferable
condescension: ‘But it is after all not to be wondered at,’ said he, ‘because he has been for some time a sailor. My
good man, is it three or five years that you have been to sea?’ And Frank, in a defiant shout: ‘Two!’ Whereupon, so
high did the ill-feeling run, that we three clapped and applauded and shouted, so that the President (whose house we
were then passing) doubtless started at the sounds. It was nine when we got to the hotel; at first no food was to be
found, but we skirmished up some bread and cheese and beer and brandy; and (having changed our wet clothes for the
rather less wet in our bags) supped on the verandah.

Saturday 28TH. I was wakened about 6.30, long past my usual hour, by a benevolent passer-by. My turtle lay
on the verandah at my door, and the man woke me to tell me it was dead, as it had been when we put it on board the day
before. All morning I ran the gauntlet of men and women coming up to me: ‘Mr. Stevenson, your turtle is dead.’ I gave
half of it to the hotel keeper, so that his cook should cut it up; and we got a damaged shell, and two splendid meals,
beefsteak one day and soup the next. The horses came for us about 9.30. It was waterspouting; we were drenched before
we got out of the town; the road was a fine going Highland trout stream; it thundered deep and frequent, and my
mother’s horse would not better on a walk. At last she took pity on us, and very nobly proposed that Belle and I should
ride ahead. We were mighty glad to do so, for we were cold. Presently, I said I should ride back for my mother, but it
thundered again, Belle is afraid of thunder, and I decided to see her through the forest before I returned for my other
hen — I may say, my other wet hen. About the middle of the wood, where it is roughest and steepest, we met three
pack-horses with barrels of lime-juice. I piloted Belle past these — it is not very easy in such a road — and then
passed them again myself, to pilot my mother. This effected, it began to thunder again, so I rode on hard after Belle.
When I caught up with her, she was singing Samoan hymns to support her terrors! We were all back, changed, and at table
by lunch time, 11 A.M. Nor have any of us been the worse for it sinsyne. That is pretty good for a woman of my mother’s
age and an invalid of my standing; above all, as Tauilo was laid up with a bad cold, probably increased by rage.

Friday, 3rd June.

On Wednesday the club could not be held, and I must ride down town and to and fro all afternoon delivering messages,
then dined and rode up by the young moon. I had plenty news when I got back; there is great talk in town of my
deportation: it is thought they have written home to Downing Street requesting my removal, which leaves me not much
alarmed; what I do rather expect is that H. J. Moors and I may be haled up before the C. J. to stand a trial for
Lese-Majesty. Well, we’ll try and live it through.

The rest of my history since Monday has been unadulterated DavidBalfour. In season and out of
season, night and day, David and his innocent harem — let me be just, he never has more than the two — are on my mind.
Think of David Balfour with a pair of fair ladies — very nice ones too — hanging round him. I really believe David is
as a good character as anybody has a right to ask for in a novel. I have finished drafting Chapter XX. today, and feel
it all ready to froth when the spigot is turned.

O I forgot — and do forget. What did I mean? A waft of cloud has fallen on my mind, and I will write no more.

Wednesday, I believe, 8th June.

Lots of David, and lots of David, and the devil any other news. Yesterday we were startled by great guns firing a
salute, and today Whitmee (missionary) rode up to lunch, and we learned it was the curacoa come in, the ship
(according to rumour) in which I was to be deported. I went down to meet my fate, and the captain is to dine with me
Saturday, so I guess I am not going this voyage. Even with the particularity with which I write to you, how much of my
life goes unexpressed; my troubles with a madman by the name of — a genuine living lunatic, I believe, and jolly
dangerous; my troubles about poor — all these have dropped out; yet for moments they were very instant, and one of them
is always present with me.

I have finished copying Chapter XXI. of David — ‘Solus cum sola; we travel together.’ Chapter XXII.,
‘Solus cum sola; we keep house together,’ is already drafted. To the end of XXI. makes more than 150 pages of
my manuscript — damn this hair — and I only designed the book to run to about 200; but when you introduce the female
sect, a book does run away with you. I am very curious to see what you will think of my two girls. My own opinion is
quite clear; I am in love with both. I foresee a few pleasant years of spiritual flirtations. The creator (if I may
name myself, for the sake of argument, by such a name) is essentially unfaithful. For the duration of the two chapters
in which I dealt with Miss Grant, I totally forgot my heroine, and even — but this is a flat secret — tried to win away
David. I think I must try some day to marry Miss Grant. I’m blest if I don’t think I’ve got that hair out! which seems
triumph enough; so I conclude.

Tuesday.

Your infinitesimal correspondence has reached me, and I have the honour to refer to it with scorn. It contains only
one statement of conceivable interest, that your health is better; the rest is null, and so far as disquisitory
unsound. I am all right, but David Balfour is ailing; this came from my visit to the man-of-war, where I had a cup of
tea, and the most of that night walked the verandah with extraordinary convictions of guilt and ruin, many of which
(but not all) proved to have fled with the day, taking David along with them; he R.I.P. in Chapter XXII.

On Saturday I went down to the town, and fetched up Captain Gibson to dinner; Sunday I was all day at Samoa, and had
a pile of visitors. Yesterday got my mail, including your despicable sheet; was fooled with a visit from the high chief
Asi, went down at 4 P.M. to my Samoan lesson from Whitmee — I think I shall learn from him, he does not fool me with
cockshot rules that are demolished next day, but professes ignorance like a man; the truth is, the grammar has still to
be expiscated — dined with Haggard, and got home about nine.

Wednesday.

The excellent Clarke up here almost all day yesterday, a man I esteem and like to the soles of his boots; I prefer
him to anyone in Samoa, and to most people in the world; a real good missionary, with the inestimable advantage of
having grown up a layman. Pity they all can’t get that! It recalls my old proposal, which delighted Lady Taylor so
much, that every divinity student should be thirty years old at least before he was admitted. Boys switched out of
college into a pulpit, what chance have they? That any should do well amazes me, and the most are just what was to be
expected.

Saturday.

I must tell you of our feast. It was long promised to the boys, and came off yesterday in one of their new houses.
My good Simele arrived from Savaii that morning asking for political advice; then we had Tauilo; Elena’s father, a
talking man of Tauilo’s family; Talolo’s cousin; and a boy of Simele’s family, who attended on his dignity; then Metu,
the meat-man — you have never heard of him, but he is a great person in our household — brought a lady and a boy — and
there was another infant — eight guests in all. And we sat down thirty strong. You should have seen our procession,
going (about two o’clock), all in our best clothes, to the hall of feasting! All in our Sunday’s best. The new house
had been hurriedly finished; the rafters decorated with flowers; the floor spread, native style, with green leaves; we
had given a big porker, twenty-five pounds of fresh beef, a tin of biscuit, cocoanuts, etc. Our places were all
arranged with much care; the native ladies of the house facing our party; the sides filled up by the men; the guests,
please observe: the two chief people, male and female, were placed with our family, the rest between S. and the native
ladies. After the feast was over, we had kava, and the calling of the kava was a very elaborate affair, and I thought
had like to have made Simele very angry; he is really a considerable chief, but he and Tauilo were not called till
after all our family, and the guests, I suppose the principle being that he was still regarded as one of the
household. I forgot to say that our black boy did not turn up when the feast was ready. Off went the two cooks, found
him, decorated him with huge red hibiscus flowers — he was in a very dirty under shirt — brought him back between them
like a reluctant maid, and, thrust him into a place between Faauma and Elena, where he was petted and ministered to.
When his turn came in the kava drinking — and you may be sure, in their contemptuous, affectionate kindness for him, as
for a good dog, it came rather earlier than it ought — he was cried under a new name. Aleki is what they make
of his own name Arrick; but instead of

{ the cup of }
{‘le ipu o }

Aleki!’ it was called ‘le ipu o Vailima’ and it was explained that he had ‘taken his chief-name’! a jest at
which the plantation still laughs. Kava done, I made a little speech, Henry translating. If I had been well, I should
have alluded to all, but I was scarce able to sit up; so only alluded to my guest of all this month, the Tongan, Tomas,
and to Simele, partly for the jest of making him translate compliments to himself. The talking man replied with many
handsome compliments to me, in the usual flood of Samoan fluent neatness; and we left them to an afternoon of singing
and dancing. Must stop now, as my right hand is very bad again. I am trying to write with my left.

Sunday.

About half-past eight last night, I had gone to my own room, Fanny and Lloyd were in Fanny’s, every one else in bed,
only two boys on the premises — the two little brown boys Mitaiele (Michael), age I suppose 11 or 12, and the new
steward, a Wallis islander, speaking no English and about fifty words of Samoan, recently promoted from the bush work,
and a most good, anxious, timid lad of 15 or 16 — looks like 17 or 18, of course — they grow fast here. In comes
Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward’s name) wanting to go and see his family in the
bush. — ‘But he has no family in the bush,’ said Lloyd. ‘No,’ said Mitaiele. They went to the boy’s bed (they sleep in
the walled-in compartment of the verandah, once my dressing-room) and called at once for me. He lay like one asleep,
talking in drowsy tones but without excitement, and at times ‘cheeping’ like a frightened mouse; he was quite cool to
the touch, and his pulse not fast; his breathing seemed wholly ventral; the bust still, the belly moving strongly.
Presently he got from his bed, and ran for the door, with his head down not three feet from the floor and his body all
on a stretch forward, like a striking snake: I say ‘ran,’ but this strange movement was not swift. Lloyd and I mastered
him and got him back in bed. Soon there was another and more desperate attempt to escape, in which Lloyd had his ring
broken. Then we bound him to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes, boards and pillows. He lay there and sometimes
talked, sometimes whispered, sometimes wept like an angry child; his principal word was ‘Faamolemole’ — ‘Please’ — and
he kept telling us at intervals that his family were calling him. During this interval, by the special grace of God, my
boys came home; we had already called in Arrick, the black boy; now we had that Hercules, Lafaele, and a man Savea, who
comes from Paatalise’s own island and can alone communicate with him freely. Lloyd went to bed, I took the first watch,
and sat in my room reading, while Lafaele and Arrick watched the madman. Suddenly Arrick called me; I ran into the
verandah; there was Paatalise free of all his bonds and Lafaele holding him. To tell what followed is impossible. We
were five people at him — Lafaele and Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the struggle lasted until 1 A.M.
before we had him bound. One detail for a specimen: Lloyd and I had charge of one leg, we were both sitting on it, and
lo! we were both tossed into the air — I, I daresay, a couple of feet. At last we had him spread-eagled to the iron
bedstead, by his wrists and ankles, with matted rope; a most inhumane business, but what could we do? it was all we
could do to manage it even so. The strength of the paroxysms had been steadily increasing, and we trembled for the
next. And now I come to pure Rider Haggard. Lafaele announced that the boy was very bad, and he would get ‘some
medicine’ which was a family secret of his own. Some leaves were brought mysteriously in; chewed, placed on the boy’s
eyes, dropped in his ears (see Hamlet) and stuck up his nostrils; as he did this, the weird doctor partly smothered the
patient with his hand; and by about 2 A.M. he was in a deep sleep, and from that time he showed no symptom of dementia
whatever. The medicine (says Lafaele) is principally used for the wholesale slaughter of families; he himself feared
last night that his dose was fatal; only one other person, on this island, knows the secret; and she, Lafaele darkly
whispers, has abused it. This remarkable tree we must try to identify.

The man-of-war doctor came up today, gave us a strait-waistcoat, taught us to bandage, examined the boy and saw he
was apparently well — he insisted on doing his work all morning, poor lad, and when he first came down kissed all the
family at breakfast! The Doctor was greatly excited, as may be supposed, about Lafaele’s medicine.

Tuesday.

All yesterday writing my mail by the hand of Belle, to save my wrist. This is a great invention, to which I shall
stick, if it can be managed. We had some alarm about Paatalise, but he slept well all night for a benediction. This
lunatic asylum exercise has no attractions for any of us.

I don’t know if I remembered to say how much pleased I was with Across the Plains in every way, inside and
out, and you and me. The critics seem to taste it, too, as well as could be hoped, and I believe it will continue to
bring me in a few shillings a year for a while. But such books pay only indirectly.

To understand the full horror of the mad scene, and how well my boys behaved, remember that they believed P.‘s
ravings, they knew that his dead family, thirty strong, crowded the front verandah and called on him to
come to the other world. They knew that his dead brother had met him that afternoon in the bush and struck him
on both temples. And remember! we are fighting the dead, and they had to go out again in the black night, which is the
dead man’s empire. Yet last evening, when I thought P. was going to repeat the performance, I sent down for Lafaele,
who had leave of absence, and he and his wife came up about eight o’clock with a lighted brand. These are the things
for which I have to forgive my old cattle-man his manifold shortcomings; they are heroic — so are the shortcomings, to
be sure.

It came over me the other day suddenly that this diary of mine to you would make good pickings after I am dead, and
a man could make some kind of a book out of it without much trouble. So, for God’s sake, don’t lose them, and they will
prove a piece of provision for my ‘poor old family,’ as Simele calls it.

About my coming to Europe, I get more and more doubtful, and rather incline to Ceylon again as place of meeting. I
am so absurdly well here in the tropics, that it seems like affectation. Yet remember I have never once stood Sydney.
Anyway, I shall have the money for it all ahead, before I think of such a thing.

We had a bowl of Punch on your birthday, which my incredible mother somehow knew and remembered.

I sometimes sit and yearn for anything in the nature of an income that would come in — mine has all got to be gone
and fished for with the immortal mind of man. What I want is the income that really comes in of itself while all you
have to do is just to blossom and exist and sit on chairs. Think how beautiful it would be not to have to mind the
critics, and not even the darkest of the crowd — Sidney Colvin. I should probably amuse myself with works that would
make your hair curl, if you had any left.